It is probable, however, that he meant to convey
some such meaning as this, that those who were both by nature and habit
given to the commission of those sins which are committed by the most
abandoned of men, could not be completely transformed even by
punishment. And yet this is shown to be false from the history of
certain philosophers. For who is there that would not rank among
the most abandoned of men the individual who somehow submitted to yield
himself to his master, when he placed him in a brothel,
36413641ἐπὶ
τέγους. [“Ut quidam
scripserunt,” says Hoffmann.] that he might allow himself to be polluted
by any one who liked? And yet such a circumstance is related of
Phædo! And who will not agree that he who burst, accompanied
with a flute-player and a party of revellers, his profligate
associates, into the school of the venerable Xenocrates, to insult a
man who was the admiration of his friends, was not one of the greatest
miscreants
36423642μιαρώτατον
ἀνθρώπων. among
mankind? Yet, notwithstanding this, reason was powerful
enough
491to effect their
conversion, and to enable them to make such progress in philosophy,
that the one was deemed worthy by Plato to recount the discourse of
Socrates on immortality, and to record his firmness in prison, when he
evinced his contempt of the hemlock, and with all fearlessness and
tranquillity of mind treated of subjects so numerous and important,
that it is difficult even for those to follow them who are giving their
utmost attention, and who are disturbed by no distraction; while
Polemon, on the other hand, who from a profligate became a man of most
temperate life, was successor in the school of Xenocrates, so
celebrated for his venerable character. Celsus then does not
speak the truth when he says “that sinners by nature and habit
cannot be completely reformed even by chastisement.”